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EF 4.2 Released

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The information in this post is out of date.

Visit msdn.com/data/ef for the latest information on current and past releases of EF.

 

We recently posted about our plans to rationalize how we name, distribute and talk about releases. We heard a resounding ‘Yes’ from you so then we posted about our plans for releasing EF 4.2.

We then shipped a Beta and a Release Candidate of EF 4.2. Today we are making the final release of EF 4.2 available.

 

EF 4.2 = Bug Fixes + Semantic Versioning

When we released ‘EF 4.1 Update 1’ we introduced a bug that affects third party EF providers using a generic class for their provider factory implementation, things such as WrappingProviderFactory<TProvider>. We missed this during our testing and it was reported by some of our provider writers after we had shipped. If you hit this bug you will get a FileLoadException stating “The given assembly name or codebase was invalid”. This bug is blocking some third party providers from working with ‘EF 4.1 Update 1’ and the only workaround for folks using an affected provider is to ask them to remain on EF 4.1. Third party provider writers then identified some areas in EF where it was hard to get EF to work with their providers, so we decided to address these issues in the EF 4.2 release. These provider related changes will be the only changes between ‘EF 4.1 Update 1’ and ‘EF 4.2’.

Obviously a single bug fix wouldn’t normally warrant bumping the minor version, but we also wanted to take the opportunity to get onto the semantic versioning path rather than calling the release ‘EF 4.1 Update 2’.

 

Getting Started

The following walkthroughs are available for EF 4.2:

 

Getting EF 4.2

EF 4.2 is available via NuGet as the EntityFramework package. If you already have the EntityFramework package installed then updating to the latest version will give you EF 4.2.

NuGetInstallCommand

 

Code First Migrations

To use Code First Migrations with EF 4.2 you will need to upgrade to the latest version of the EntityFramework.Migrations NuGet package.

Failure to update to the latest version of Code First Migrations will result in an error stating “Unable to load one or more of the requested types. Retrieve the LoaderExceptions property for more information. “

After updating to the latest Code First Migrations package you will need to close and re-open Visual Studio.

 

Model First & Database First Templates

The templates for using the DbContext API with Model First and Database First are now available under the “Online Templates” tab when “Right-Click –> Add Code Generation Item…” is selected on the EF Designer.

AddDbContextTemplate

 

Support

This release can be used in a live operating environment subject to the terms in the license terms. The ADO.NET Entity Framework Forum can be used for questions relating to this release.

 

What’s Not in This Release?

As covered earlier this release is just a small update to the DbContext & Code First runtime. The features that were included in EF June 2011 CTP require changes to the Core Entity Framework Libraries that are part of the .NET Framework and will ship at a later date.

Our Code First Migrations work is continuing and we are working to get the next release in your hands soon.

 

ADO.NET Entity Framework Team

License.rtf

Comments

  1. Am I to construe the latest EF 4.2 is an RTM version?
  2. What's the download link to get EF 4.2 for those of us who don't trust/use NuGet? Thanks.

  • Anonymous
    November 01, 2011
    Thanks for not ignoring database first approach. Remember that lots of people don't use code first approach in big projects !

  • Anonymous
    November 01, 2011
    Hi, this is great news. Any news on how to use enums in Code First?.... can't wait :-)

  • Anonymous
    November 01, 2011
    Please add support for table valued functions for Code-First.

  • Anonymous
    November 02, 2011
    Its great. Any plans for future adding Interceptors?

  • Anonymous
    November 02, 2011
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    November 02, 2011
    The insert still generates null for Default values, why can't the Generated Insert Statement only have columns with values and ignore unassigned properties, in other words (use SQL defaults for non nulls on insert), or at least make it optional etc.

  • Anonymous
    November 02, 2011
    "Semantic Versioning" Good to hear, thanks for listening!

  • Anonymous
    November 03, 2011
    @Matt Hinze – The next .NET release includes some updates to core libraries that reduce when we do outer joins instead of inner joins. Unfortunately because this is a change we need to make to the .NET libraries we couldn’t get it into this release. @Khaled – TVF support required some changes to the core libraries in .NET. We will release an update to Code First alongside the next .NET release that supports TVFs. @Kris444 – Are you referring to query interceptors? If so, we do have this on our backlog but there are no firm plans around when we would tackle it.

  • Anonymous
    November 03, 2011
    @Vasim – This is something our team has talked about. We don’t have any plans around supporting it yet but it is something we are aware of.

  • Anonymous
    November 03, 2011
    Does the EF 4.2 contain the Improvements for TPT Querie mentioned in the June CTP?

  • Anonymous
    November 03, 2011
    Great stuff guys. I remember hearing at build!, but didn't actually see, that there is now support for the story between EF and Database Projects. Ideally for me what this means is when I amend a code-first class hierarchy, or change an EF4 model and hit generate database script, is that it updates the Database Project, which realistically is the best way by far to maintain and update production databases - you can't simply run the EF code-first migrations on a live database. What's the latest with this? Cheers Isaac

  • Anonymous
    November 03, 2011
    Entity Framework is a great tool, however the way you deal with error notifications leaves a lot of space for improvement. I have created an error notification almost a month ago and I still did not get any reply. connect.microsoft.com/.../dbentityentry-getdatabasevalues-method-crashes-when-db-context-has-different-namespace-than-the-data-objects Cheers, Michal Wozniak

  • Anonymous
    November 03, 2011
    If you want to make use of the new enum functionality in the June CTP you can't use pocos. How come you can't use both pocos, EF4.2 and the enum functionality? Or if u can, could you elaborate how...

  • Anonymous
    November 04, 2011
    Where can we get the online templates if our company blocks the Visual Studio online templates via proxy server?

  • Anonymous
    November 04, 2011
    Never mind .... I found them in the VS Gallery online

  • Anonymous
    November 04, 2011
    is there gonna be a feature to update an no-tracked eintity coming from a differen context. kind like merge where u can have an entity coming from a diffent context and this entity and its child can be updated in current context with out complicated conding.

  • Anonymous
    November 04, 2011
    Why are you only releasing on NuGet?  Not everyone has or uses NuGet.  Until NuGet is built into Visual Studio it shouldn't be the only distribution method.  You are alienating a large group of users.  I don't like NuGet but you are saying if I want to user EF 4.2 I have to get NuGet.  Come on Microsoft, you should always post a full install in your standard downloads area.

  • Anonymous
    November 04, 2011
    Thanks Rowan Miller, great product BTW! - Just needs some refinement IMHO.

  • Anonymous
    November 05, 2011
    Amazing how many people are asking about things that have already been explained (in this post even).  Folks, wait for .NET 4.5, then you'll have enums, TVF, query improvements and everything else that required updates to the BCL that couldn't be shipped out of band.  RTFP. And who doesn't trust NuGet?  Seriously?  Is it because there's a bug affecting you?  Here's an idea: contribute to the project.  Honestly.  "Microsoft doesn't support Open Source enough" "Microsoft should be doing this themselves".  Microsoft spawned NuGet in the open source arena.  Quitcherbitchin. </rant>

  • Anonymous
    November 08, 2011
    When will 4.2 be avaliable as a standalone installer?

  • Anonymous
    November 09, 2011
    It seems like including libraries like EF as part of the base .NET framework is a mistake if that means waiting for major framework releases to get updates.  They made the same mistake of adding everything including the kitchen sink to the Java runtime, resulting in people creating their own libraries instead of waiting for the runtime to be updated.  I suppose that, for this reason, something like NHibernate will always be the better choice.  We shouldn't have to roll out a new framework to get "enums, TVF, query improvements and everything else".

  • Anonymous
    November 09, 2011
    +1 on making EF 4.2 available as a standalone installer!

  • Anonymous
    November 09, 2011
    A post of what EF tools work or do not work with 4.2 would be handy.  I'm trying to get started with this, and getting my machine set up correctly feels like a 1991-style deployment nightmare.

  • Anonymous
    November 09, 2011
    +1 on making the goods avail. via standalone installer! :) Great work!

  • Anonymous
    November 10, 2011
    Is it possible for the EF product to participate in Microsoft Connect??

  • Anonymous
    November 21, 2011
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    December 03, 2011
    Can we get a direct download link? NuGet has a bug where it refuses to install all of the templates required to use EF 4.1/4.2. Previous posts said that the only way to solve this problem was to avoid NuGet and install 4.1 directly from the download link. I installed 4.2 directly using NuGet and bypassed 4.1, but of course I'm missing those templates. I'd really like to get the issue fixed - please post a link to the MS download site!

  • Anonymous
    December 05, 2011
    How do the new code get onto servers? Will the new binaries just be complied into the bin directory?

  • Anonymous
    December 08, 2011
    Want to work hard in the implementation of efficiency

  • Anonymous
    December 12, 2011
    When will the new EF / .NET 4.5 come out with full support for spatial and geography types?

  • Anonymous
    December 12, 2011
    @Luis: unfortunately we don’t have a date we can share at this point.

  • Anonymous
    December 12, 2011
    @SC the T4 templates for DbContext are not included in the NuGet package. You have to download them from the Visual Studio Gallery as described in the "Model First & Database First Templates" section in this blog post. By the way, if the need arises, the NuGet Gallery site (http://nuget.org) has a new feature that provides a download link for the package.  Keep in mind that you need to be logged on the site for the download link to appear and also that you might need to change the extension of the downloaded file to .zip in order to see its contents.

  • Anonymous
    December 12, 2011
    @David McCarter: yes you can simply deploy EntityFramework.dll as part of your application to the server.

  • Anonymous
    December 12, 2011
    @Paul: Look in the "Model First & Database First Templates" section in the blog post. All you need to do to work with the Entity Designer and this version of EF is to add the DbContext template and the EF NuGet package. The rest stays the same.

  • Anonymous
    December 12, 2011
    @Creepy Gnome: it would be very interesting for us to learn why you don't like NuGet.

  • Anonymous
    December 12, 2011
    @Lars: enum property support will be enabled by changes that will be included in .NET 4.5, both for POCO and non-POCO classes. We will ship a preview version of EF that will support enums in Code First and DbContext as soon as the next pre-release version of .NET 4.5 goes out.

  • Anonymous
    January 02, 2012
    I have to agree with the others that are opposed to using NuGet.  When using TFS (which is fully supported) it is a major PITA trying to set things up correctly as the "packages" folder is outside the folder structure of all projects.  You can't just open a solution, do a "Get Latest" and get the updated package files unless you manually build the entire packages folder structure using solution folders.  I can't understand how you guys didn't see this as you are required to dog-feed yourselves and use TFS.

  • Anonymous
    January 05, 2012
    Is there a plan to support SQL Server 2012. Specifically using sequence to generate primary key and pagination using the offset / fetch clause as in msdn.microsoft.com/.../ms188385(v=sql.110).aspx.

  • Anonymous
    January 07, 2012
    Hi folks! I'm trying to use ef4.2 with VS2011 developer preview. The installation via nuget worked fine but I'm no able to find the dbcontext templates. I followed the instructions to find it online but it does not worked too. Any help will be very appreciated.

  • Anonymous
    January 25, 2012
    We need an installer.  Working for Federal Agency that does not allow me to access Nuget download content....it's going to take forever for me to get authorization to access this......

  • Anonymous
    February 23, 2012
    thanks

  • Anonymous
    March 23, 2012
    +1 for a non-NuGet accessible download.

  • Anonymous
    May 10, 2012
    How about WCF DataServices? Oracle finally has issued a data base driver that support EF, however, only up to EF 4.2. There is a T4 Template "EF 4.x DbContext Generator" which works very well. There is a "ADO.NET DBContext Generator with WCF support" which does not work with EF 4.2. That's a pity - since Oracle support only EF 4.2 that means with Oracle we cannot utilize WCF DataServices. Could you produce a "EF 4.x DbContext Generator with WCF support" for poor guys like us tied up to EF 4.2?

  • Anonymous
    May 11, 2012
    @GSchneider - I just tried the "ADO.NET DBContext Generator with WCF support" and it all seemed to work. The only major difference between 4.1 and 4.3 is the addition of Code First Migrations which shouldn't impact it's use with WCF Data Services. If there is something blocking you using the template then start up a Stack Overflow thread with details and we'll help you work through it. BTW - Given you are using the designer, rather than Code First, there shouldn't be any issues using the Oracle provider with the latest version of EF.